Canada Fishing Trip -part 2 - getting to Camp Ontario

Our third night out was spent in International Falls, Minnesota so we could get our groceries and get to Camp Ontario on Saturday morning.  We hadn't made motel reservations and ended up in an older motel in a room with three double beds.  It seems that International Falls is a hopping place on Friday nights - lots of people stay there so they can cross into Canada for their fishing trip on Saturday.  We talked with Robert and Janet at Camp Ontario and got directions to where we were to meet them.  We got up fairly early on Saturday morning and went to the grocery store to get our supplies for the week.  We had discussed what we would have each evening but it still took us some time to buy the groceries.  We loaded them up into the two big coolers in the back of the pickup and took off for the border crossing. Here's what we saw - and it was still another mile or more to the Canadian border!

Hopefully you can read the message on the side of this building!

We could not believe the number of boats crossing into Canada and then once across how many were going back to the US.  The line to get back across into the US was as long if not longer than the line going into Canada.  Obviously fishing is a large attraction for this part of Canada.


It took almost an hour to get to the border crossing into Canada.  Neither one of us had been across the border to Canada but we had our passports ready.  The Canadian patrolman asked where we going and a few other questions.  More than once he asked if we had any alcohol or tobacco to declare and we didn't but I guess he didn't believe us.  He handed Sandy a small piece of paper and told us to pull into a bay on the left so they could search our vehicle.  It wasn't really bad but it definitely was a little unnerving.  We were asked to get out of the pickup and set on a bench next to it.   About five or six agents looked through things in the cab and back of the pickup.  We had packed our clothes in large plastic containers and sealed them with duct tape and they opened those and rifled through them.  They also went through our groceries and looked at Sandy's fishing tackle.  After about 15 minutes they sent us on our way.  We made a stop at a Wal-M@rt in Fort Frances looking for potatoes but they didn't have any there.  It was definitely not like the Wal-M@rt at home.  We did find a small grocery store and to our potatoes.  After taking a wrong turn, we finally got on the right road and made it to Wilderness Outfitters dock where we were to meet Robert.  Because of all the delays we had missed Robert and it would be about 45 minutes before he returned.  Here are some pictures taken while we waited.

 

By the time Robert returned we had all our stuff unloaded from the pickup and waiting on him on the dock.  This is where we parked the pickup for the week.

It was pretty cool and lightly raining on the boat trip to camp and I sat huddled up and really didn't watch where we were going.  It was about a 20-25 minute ride.  Once we were there Janet gave us the choice of two different two bedroom cabins.  Out of the six cabins two others were occupied.  One was a couple of guys from Tyler, Texas (which is where Robert and Janet live during the rest of the year) and the other with a couple and their brother.  It was a very light week for Camp Ontario.  Here's some pictures of our cabin.  

Our bedroom 

 The outhouse - view from our bedroom window

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 The extra bedroom - which we used as our "closet"

The front porch aka Sandy's fishing tackle storage

As you can see it was pretty rustic!  Robert and Janet had running water at their house and we were able to fill our "running water jug" from their outdoor spigot. We brought drinking water with us.  The outhouse was behind the cabin - just a short walk and yes, I did go to the outhouse during the night a couple of times.